


Phantom Towns

by chaoticrandomness



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Psychological Horror, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 16:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6915253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticrandomness/pseuds/chaoticrandomness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Lidice, as told from the perspective of its nation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phantom Towns

It’s the tenth of June, and my body is riddled with bullet holes. 

 

_ They’re… wait, how is this possible? I would recall an invasion, or an attack, but nothing happened….  _

 

I rush towards the nearest mirror, which confirms that I have no wounds. In fact, I look just like I did yesterday, but I feel like there’s something missing from my body. 

 

_ I went to bed at a normal time, and all the men are dead, and… that’s impossible, for I would know about a mass-killing of my own people.  _

 

_ I would kill Germany if it ever came to that.  _

 

“Is everything alright?” my housemate asks, and he clearly looks worried, so something  _ did  _ happen…. 

 

“What did I do last night?” I ask, for I need to find out the source of my pain. 

 

“You were asleep.” 

 

“That’s very helpful; I know that.” I say, as I walk downstairs and try not to faint. 

 

* * *

 

_ Here lie the dead… here lie the executed men and women…  _

 

I am wandering around my house and searching for a paintbrush while simultaneously starting at a pile of rubble, and I have no idea how any of that’s even possible. 

 

_ The stress of war and occupation and resistance might be the cause of this?  _

 

If this is the price I have to pay to avoid turning into a permanent puppet-state, I’ll gladly spend the rest of my life hallucinating disturbing things, but what happened in that town was  _ real _ …. 

 

_ There was a town which had a farm and a school and a thousand people, and it existed… but that could be any town in any nation, any town that once existed and is now gone…  _

 

The paintbrush is sitting in a jar with a scalpel and some spare viola strings, and I pull it and the scalpel out of the jar before slicing my hand open, for there was a town that’s now a sea of blood, and I will paint it to the utmost accuracy. 

 

* * *

 

_ There is a truck and it kills the children inside. There is a facility where they took the rest of them, and told them that they were no longer Czech and brainwashed them….  _

 

I am in Poland and speaking German that I don’t understand, but I’m also standing in the middle of my kitchen and holding a knife to my throat, yet if there was truly something missing, shouldn’t I be wanting to make it grow back? 

 

_ The entire town was burned to the ground and declared to be forgotten. After they kill everyone, it’ll be completely lost to history except as a warning signal….  _

 

I should  _ know  _ the name of this place, as I know the name of every part of me, and its people deserve to remembered as more than a warning to those who even look at the Reich the wrong way… 

 

_ It’s… it had the letter L in it, I think, and there was a mass-grave where they buried all of the bodies of the people they killed….  _

 

The dead are in my living room, and they are imploring me to remember the name of this one little missing town. I take a step towards them, only to accidentally trip over the feet of my housemate. 

 

“They’re all dead.” I answer, when he asks me what’s happening. 

 

* * *

 

“What are you doing?!” Germany exclaims, and I am holding a gun to his face, but I don’t recall ever getting into his house. 

 

_ I have no reason to threaten him so overtly, lest he suspect any sort of resistance.  _

 

“You killed them all.” I answer, and I am laughing and crying and slamming the gun against his temple… 

 

_ You ripped out a part of me in retribution for Heydrich! Those people has absolutely nothing to do with him!  _

 

“...everything I do is for the good of the Reich.” he answers, and his voice is completely monotone, like he’s unaware of everything he’s telling me. 

 

“You think committing  _ genocide  _ is for the greater good?!” I exclaim, for that is exactly what he does; he takes all of the people that don’t fit his mould and kills them while brainwashing the whole world into forgetting.… 

 

I pull the trigger as a brief flash of surprise flashes over his face. As he falls to the ground, I run back to my house and collapse onto the sofa, for memories are rushing through my veins and mind. 

 

* * *

 

_ This is the place that used to the be the town of Lidice. And now it’s…  _

 

I get out of the car and stare into the rubble, while trying to remember every single person whose life was needlessly taken during the war. 

 

_ These people deserve to be immortalized in a better way, and I need to make up for forgetting all of this for three years…  _

 

Could you forget something that you never remembered in the first place? 

 

_ It existed as a series of thoughts and hallucinations and compulsions. That’s good enough for a memory.  _

 

“What are you going to do now?” someone asks me, or maybe I’m just imaging a voice. 

  
“I think I’m going to build a memorial.” I answer, as I slowly turn away from the destruction and walk away. 


End file.
